


sing me to sleep (i'm tired and i want to go to bed)

by FreckledFawn



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/F, Hospitalization, Internalized Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, gotta release my own mental health shit somehow, oomph sorry this is really angsty, the ending is bittersweet though so it's not all angst?? haah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8122510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledFawn/pseuds/FreckledFawn
Summary: Riley has spent her whole life being the one to fix other people; now she's falling apart, and she can't fix herself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> GOD IM RLLY SORRY TO PUT SO MUCH ANGST IN ONE FIC.. but honestly Riley seems to be experiencing the beginnings of depression in the latest seasons, and since I'm still fighting my own battle with depression and anxiety, depressed!riley is rlly important to me aah... anyways please take heed of the tags, and please don't read if this will be triggering!! jsyk the rilaya in this fic is more pining than actual relationship so that tag may be slightly misleading 
> 
> title is from asleep by the smiths

Riley is tired.

It’s a different kind of tired from the exhilarating exhaustion when she would be up until late hours with Maya, laughing about anything and everything; different from the soft, sleepy feeling of being wrapped up in blankets with Maya snoring inches away from her.

It’s a deep, heavy ache in her core that can’t be cured by any amount of sleep, that settles in her bones and chest and brain and haunts her starting from the moment she wakes up. She used to try and pass it off as physical exhaustion from cheer practice, but she’s slowly realizing it’s a dense fog of exhaustion and sadness that has settled over her brain. Most days, it feels like nothing matters, and she’s having trouble feeling genuinely happy. She’s so used to being the one who helped other people, so used to being the bright beam of sunshine, and it’s getting harder and harder to paste on a smile and skip from class to class and act goofy all the time. She realizes that her friends see her as an unfiltered source of happiness, and she’s racked with guilt that she’s having so much trouble playing this role lately. She focuses her energy on grinning from ear to ear and acting silly and pretending to see the bird, because she can’t let them down and if she can’t do this then what is she good for?

Every day, there’s a little voice in her head that brings her down a notch every time it pipes up. It reminds her that //you’re not good enough, everything is your fault, she’ll never love you, you deserve to be dead//. Riley tries to fight it, to find the rational part of her brain that contradicts these things, but at some point she just gives in because she’s too damn tired to fight anymore. She can’t find a way to deal with it, because she doesn’t want to burden someone else with her stupid problems; her job is to fix the problems, not cause them, so she hides them as best as she can. Sometimes, the effort is just too much and her pasted-on smile cracks, but one day Maya notices and the concern in her eyes hurts Riley so deeply that she panics because oh my god, I did that, it’s my fault, and she immediately says something silly, but she’s not sure what it is because all she can hear is white noise and she focuses on the feeling of her fingernails discreetly digging into her wrists until she feels the skin break. 

At this point the only thing in her life that feels simple is sleeping and she does it a lot until god damn it, that becomes ruined too. She falls asleep and is instantly plagued by nightmares. They vary- she sees everyone she loves leaving her, she sees Maya tenderly holding her but then turning around to kiss Lucas instead, she sees her parents announcing //we’ve decided to find a new daughter because you’re not good enough for Topanga and Cory Matthews//, she sees herself swimming in a lake, sinking below the surface but never quite drowning until she wakes up in a cold sweat, tears streaking down her face and she can’t breathe and she grabs the razor blade from the bathroom and tries to create a feeling that isn’t this one. 

\-------------------------

It’s May, and today the nurse announces that as a special occasion, she’s allowed to have a non-family guest during visiting hours. She smiles a tiny, genuine smile, because she knows exactly who her parents will bring to visit. It’s been two weeks since she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, after Topanga found her curled up bleeding on the bathroom floor, and she was forced to see her parents crying when she woke up in the E.R. They all decided it would be best for her to be briefly admitted to somewhere she would be safe, while the psychiatrists figured out the causes of the newly diagnosed depression and anxiety, and finding the right medications. Riley misses her friends, but she knows that this is the right place for her to be for the moment, until she’s more stable. The nurses are gentle, the psychiatrist listens, and the other girls on the unit are nice, even though they’re all a little broken, Riley included. When she’s not in sessions or at meals, she finds herself mostly at a table in the recreation room, drawing purple cats. 

She sits through dinner, filled with anticipation, and when they’re released to the visiting room, Riley rushes over when she sees a flash of blonde hair. She falls into Maya’s arms, crying tears of joy and relief, for once. They talk with ease, but she can tell that Maya’s still feeling awful about the situation- she blames herself for not noticing something was wrong sooner, but Riley assures her over and over again that it’s no one’s fault, and what matters is that she’s okay now and someday she will be for good. Riley feels the words //i love you// tugging at her throat, but she knows that now is not the time or place- maybe someday she can tell Maya how she feels, when she has the capacity to love herself again. But for now, she leans into Maya’s shoulder, content that soon she can leave and watch the spring flowers bloom, and someday everything will be okay again.


	2. tell me that you're alright (yeah everything is alright)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2 of this story, as requested by jockwizard! chapter title is from everything is alright by motion city soundtrack
> 
> (tw: mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts/suicide, hospitalization, and panic attacks)

Things have changed for Riley. Ever since she got released from Glenn Brooks, her daily life is different from before. Since she’s been on the medication the psychiatrist prescribed, she’s been feeling better- not all the way, but getting there. Of course, being in a hospital for two and a half weeks has left her behind in school, and she spends a lot of nights trying to catch up. The little part of her brain that would whisper terrible things to her chooses nights like these to pipe up, berating Riley about being stupid and slow and saying //you’ll never have any worth now that you’re not smart anymore//, but she takes the energy of this self-deprecation and pours it into her schoolwork. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have bad days- some days the urge to hurt herself or jump off a building consumes her, and some days she doesn’t feel like she can get out of bed. But she turns to art or writing or her friends and family when these things happen. 

Everyone treated her differently when she came back home from the hospital, which was nice at times but sometimes made her want to scream. Her parents were under strict orders to lock up sharp things and medications, and she feels a tiny shard poke her heart when her parents say that she needs to ask a friend to come over and help her babysit Auggie. //he’s my brother, in what world would i try and kill myself when i’m taking care of my little brother!// she wants to shout, but she has no right to be mad at her parents. She’s still wracked with guilt that she upset them by hiding everything from them, and forced them to find her unconscious after she tried to end her own life. She still stays up into the late hours of the night fretting over the idea of all the medical bills her parents had to pay, and //your fault your fault your fault// rings through her head. 

The first time she saw all her friends was the day after she came home, and they all came to visit. Maya was the only one who was able to visit her at Glenn Brooks, so she’s the one Riley had seen most recently. Riley’s heart pounds and she feels her cheeks flush when Maya enthusiastically hugs her and presses a chaste kiss to her forehead- //it’s platonic you’re overthinking this she’s probably straight//- but is filled with a warm fuzzy feeling as the rest of her friends joined Maya and Riley for a big group hug (excluding Smackle, whose autism made hugging awkward and huge group hugs downright stressful). There’s an awkward few minutes where she can feel them treating her with kid gloves, but when Zay cracks a joke //man, i thought school was depressing; i guess a mental hospital is like school times ten!//, everyone’s shocked winces melt away as Riley laughs a big, genuine laugh, and things start to feel normal again. 

When she returns to school, it’s close to the end of the year, so there’s not much to do; she spends her free time with Maya or sometimes Farkle, and the six of them go to Topanga’s after school to do homework and hang out. It’s times like these where sharp, intense love for Maya claws at Riley’s heart like an angry cat; when she looks over to see Maya’s flushed, happy face laughing at Zay, Smackle and Farkle pelting Lucas with pieces of muffin (he had it coming- he actually thought the Percy Jackson movies were good!). She sometimes is drawn out of her staring to see Farkle cast her a quizzical look, which is then replaced by a knowing one. She immediately ducks her head down, feeling her ears turn red and her heart squeeze tightly at the fact that someone may be catching on to her secret. 

One day, she sees Lucas smirk at Maya, affectionately teasing her during class, and when she sees the two exchange fond glances her heart feels like it’s going to beat out of her chest and it feels like the whole Abigail Adams High football team is sitting on her chest, squeezing the air out of her lungs so she raises a slightly trembling hand and quietly chokes out //bathroom, please// and walks out of the classroom. She’s almost certain that nobody noticed her leave, seeing as everyone is wrapped up in last-day excitement, but as she shakes in the bathroom, tears rolling quietly down her face as she gasps for air, Farkle pokes his head in the bathroom door and quietly comes in and sits down next to her. He wraps his arms around her and gently guides her fingernails away from her scarred wrists, quietly counting out //1, 2, inhale, 1, 2 exhale// until Riley has calmed down and she feels like she can breathe normally again. He turns to her as she wipes tears off her face, quietly reminding her //you can tell me anything, you know that Riley?//. She turns to him with a scared, desperate look in her eyes, and blurts out //i’m gay, farkle! i’m gay and i’m in love with maya!//. He hugs her as a fresh set of tears stream down her face, and lets her know that he still loves her, and so will everyone else. He remarks tentatively that he knows how scary it can be to be different, and reveals that he’s only able to be in the girl’s bathroom right now because he was assigned female at birth but at a young age it was clear that not only was he a genius, he was also a boy. Riley hugs him tighter, and the two stay like that for a while, until Farkle gently tells her //i think that there’s someone else you should tell about these things//. Riley’s heart pounds in panic for a few seconds, but she squeezes Farkle’s hand and leaves the bathroom, marching off to her destination.

She finds Maya in the hallway at her locker, and the moment she hears Maya greet her, something inside her snaps and she drags a confused Maya by the hand into an abandoned classroom. She faces Maya, who is confused and concerned (what’s going on? is everything okay? are you having urges?), takes a deep breath, grabs Maya’s face and gently kisses her. She can feel Maya’s stiff shock for a few heart-poundingly anxious moments, but both Maya’s shock and Riley’s anxiety melt away as Maya responds eagerly but tenderly, kissing her back until it feels like flowers are blooming in Riley’s chest and this may be the greatest thing that’s happened to her. They pull away and Maya’s eyes sparkle with love and adoration as she whispers //i love you too//.


End file.
